The last time the Crew faced Sporting Kansas City, Bliss was in his second game as interim
coach. After a surprising 2-0 win over the Houston Dynamo in his debut, Bliss said he was looking
forward to playing Eastern Conference-leading Kansas City on the road.

“It’ll be nice to go in there and punch the bully in the nose,” Bliss said on Sept. 4.

Nearly a month later, the bully is still waiting for contact. Despite missing three key players
because of national-team call-ups, Kansas City scored in the seventh minute and cruised to an easy
3-0 victory against a tired Crew team playing its third game in seven days while also going through
a coaching change.

It is the only blemish in what has been an impressive run of games for the Crew with Bliss at
the helm. In its other four games under Bliss, the Crew has outscored opponents 11-3 while climbing
back into the playoff picture.

After the Crew’s first practice session of the week yesterday, Bliss was not issuing any further
provocations.

“I think they punched back, and we certainly don’t want to be inciting any more stuff with words
like that,” Bliss said. “Maybe it was my exuberance at the time that led me to say that, but
certainly it wasn’t the wisest thing. We all learn.”

The Crew’s recent struggles against Kansas City have not been limited to Bliss’ term as interim
coach. The Crew is 1-4-1 in its past six games against Kansas City including a 3-2 road loss on
June 29. Kansas City enters the game second in the Eastern Conference with 48 points, seven ahead
of the sixth-place Crew.

“They’re one of the best teams in the league and it’s for a reason,” goalkeeper Matt Lampson
said. “Regardless of who they bring in, they all play the same way and you know you’re going to get
a seriously difficult matchup. They have a style of play that’s very difficult to play
against."

The hope is that this time the Crew will change the way it performs. Lampson and Bliss
acknowledged that the Crew did not deserve to win the last time these teams played, but they also
think the Crew can show better.

“We didn’t do well out there, and a lot of it was predicated on energy and not tactics,” Bliss
said. “We spent a lot of emotional energy on the Houston game, but it’s certainly not an excuse. I
think our guys are more aware (now) of what the demands are and what the requirements are. I think
we’ll give a better account of ourselves this time.”

Plus, as Lampson put it, the Crew has something Kansas City does not: a sense of urgency.

“We know that we have to win,” he said. “We need to win. They don’t need to win, and that’s
going to be a big difference in this game, I think.”